Peter Espak: Red Monuments as a Warning to Descendants

Orientalist and historian of religions Peter Espak reflects on the contradiction between defenders of Soviet monuments and critics of new monuments. In his view, those who defend Bolshevik monuments as "shared national memory" deserve their own eternal monument — as a warning.

Orientalist and historian of religions Peter Espak published a sharp column in which he draws a parallel between the discussion surrounding the controversial equestrian monument to Oeyna and the debates about the fate of Soviet monuments in Estonia.

According to Espak's observation, among the most passionate defenders of the controversial equestrian monument are many of the same people who systematically advocate for the preservation of Bolshevik red monuments — erected by Moscow authorities as territorial markers. These people present Soviet heritage as "common places of memory" worthy of preservation.

Espak believes that such a worldview itself deserves to be immortalized — but not as an honor, but as a warning. According to him, red equestrian monuments could serve as a vivid reminder of how far a person can fall if they do not care for their own soul.

The author uses a rhetorical device, proposing to erect new "cautionary monuments" — as a symbol of what results from ideological blindness and willingness to defend the heritage of occupiers under the guise of cultural memory.